Steve becomes a best-selling writer after basing a story for English class on Roger.
Tropes:
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Subverted. When he learns that Steve got an F in English, Stan decides to pay a visit to his teacher while menacingly cracking his knuckles. It then cuts to Stan finishing a pleasant lunch with the teacher and his family. But as he leaves, Stan takes out his gun, shoves the teacher against a wall, and demands to know why he failed Steve.
- After Steve announces that he's getting divorced from his parents, Stan gasps in shock, only to reveal that he's getting mugged by the clown he was sitting next to.
- The dead boy face-down in the pool of cherry Jello in the open isn't Steve, but a look-alike actor set to play him in the book's film adaptation. Steve even lampshades this with an apology to the viewing audience.
- Collector of the Strange: Steve puts together a large collection of antiquities, among which is a gumball machine that Henry Ford gave to Hitler.
- Consummate Professional: While dancing for Steve, Janet Gustafson falls and breaks her hip, yet she still keeps dancing and singing despite being in a great deal of pain.
- Didn't Think This Through: Steve tried to get out of writing a paper by having Toshi do it for him, only Toshi writes in Japanese.
- Exact Words: Stan promises to have Steve meet the Playboy centerfold model if he writes a good story. He later tries to make good on his promise, only to reveal that the model is now elderly because the magazine issue was from the 50s.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: Steve narrates that he devoted one room in his mansion to girl-on-girl action, but it actually has two scantily clad women playing chess. He's still turned on by it.
- Grub Tub: After becoming fantastically wealthy, he fills a pool full of cherry-flavored jello... which Roger later shoves Steve's lookalike into, causing him to asphyxiate.
- Prison Rape: Roger references this, telling Steve:"Sorry, pal. You're going to jail, where they're gonna take your cherry... Jell-O away... in the lunch line... after you're raped... in the shower."
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Steve's manager flees the moment they find Spike Baltar, the actor hired to play Steve in a film adaptation of his book, in the Jell-o pool.
- Shout-Out: Steve named his guard dogs Sulu and Chekov.
- Stage Mom: Stan tries to use Steve to gain the fame and recognition that he failed to get with his unpublished Patriot Pigeon books. Francine also uses some emotional manipulation to make it clear that she intends to milk Steve's popularity to give herself a lavish lifestyle.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Sunset Boulevard.
